Recipes: Baking and cooking with Natural Sugars
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Posted by Victoria Anisman-Reiner Sep 1, 2006 |
My birthday is coming up! Naturally, I'm thinking about cake baking.
In the past, well-meaning but unenlightened dabblers in alternative health have directed me to a number of "healthy" cookbooks. I've tried some of the recipes and almost universally been disappointed. Who says health food has to taste like health food?
My secret, when it comes to healthy baking with success, is to go to old favourites - recipes from cookbooks like The Joy of Cooking, or my great-aunt's famous chocolate brownies - and rewrite them to be a little safer for the health-conscious. I substitute spelt flour or other whole grains for refined white flour - or any wheat, since I try to minimize it in my diet. I also replace sugar with honey, barley malt, maple syrup, evaporated cane juice (unrefined cane sugar, which I only seldom use), stevia or agave. You can substitute carob powder or milk-free corn-sweetened carob chips for chocolate, and change anything else about the recipe that you feel like.
Guess what? It works. Better than the health food cookbooks.
For tips on substituting healthier sweeteners into your baking:
Related articles: "The Who's Who of Sugars" & Sugars: The Good